Government Wants to Control Your Medical Options Through the Stimulus Bill: “One new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure your doctor is doing what the federal government deems appropriate and cost effective.”

What?! Do we live in a free country or not? And what Tom Daschle said in his book is even more outrageous:

The goal, Daschle’s book explained, is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they are driving up costs. He praises Europeans for being more willing to accept “hopeless diagnoses” and “forgo experimental treatments,” and he chastises Americans for expecting too much from the health-care system.

When the Financial World Almost Stopped: “We were having an electronic run on the banks. They decided to close the operation… If they had not done that, their estimation is that… within 24 hours the world economy would have collapsed. It would have been the end of our economic system and our political system as we know it.”

Very scary, indeed. When will the next crisis occur, and how long will it take before we all find out?

“The Reader” Is a Bad WWII Movie: I have to agree with Slate here. “What, exactly, was the Kate Winslet character’s “personal triumph”? While in prison for participation in an act of mass murder that was particularly gruesome and personal… as a death camp guard, she helped ensure 300 Jewish women locked in a burning church would die in the fire—she taught herself to read!”